The Muppets and The Three Musketeers. (Matthew Macfadyen in period costume -- 'nuff said.) Oh, and also Breaking Dawn, because I have to review it. *sigh* Well, at least it's good for snarking purposes . . .

By the way, you can watch Red State right now on VOD. This includes through Apple TV so I assume you can get it on iTunes? It is $9.99 for the rental but I LOVE this idea of putting things on VOD right away. $10 is a steep rental but way cheaper than taking everyone to the movie at $10 a piece. I would totally get it if my bf wasn't scared of it, haha

I don't know when it opens for sure but I'm a Gary Oldman fan and am looking forward to seeing him as one of my favorite characters (George Smiley) in "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy." It looks like an exceptional cast for this one.

I've always loved The Last Voyage - it's like a granddaddy to films like The Poseidon Adventure and Juggernaut. It was actually filmed onboard a real ship, the Ile de France (I'm sure we discussed it here...maybe not), and they actually blew up parts of the ship in shallow waters of the Japanese coast and filled the forward compartments to make the ship look like it was sinking. Robert Stack and Dorothy Malone play a couple relocating to Japan with their young daughter (Tammy Marihugh - possibly one of the most annoying child actresses I've ever seen). They decide to sail an aging transpacific liner with troublesome boilers. Of course, the boilers explode, and just as Dorothy asks her husband to run back to the lounge to get her purse, the boilers explode, and she's trapped beneath the collapsed bulkhead. The rest of the movie is about Stack trying to get Malone free as the ship sinks lower and lower. The cast also features George Sanders and the self-absorbed captain, Edmond O'Brien as the cocky engineer and the magnificent looking Woody Strode as the crew member who tries to help Stack rescue his wife. There are some cheesy moments - when the lounges explode, clearly some of the passengers are "dummies", and the ship's sinking scenes near the end of the film are clearly cut and paste. But there is a lot of tension and a few nerve-wracking and touching moments.

The second film deals with how the US film industry responded to the Holocaust, featuring films like The Mortal Storm, The Great Dictator, The Diary of Anne Frank, The Pawnbroker, Sophie's Choice, Schindler's List...and countless others. The question is can Hollywood ever make a movie that truly can capture the horror that was the Holocaust. They criticize films like the Anne Frank movie for its avoidance of the bad stuff, and how Pollyanna-ish it tended to be; and also how it was "de-ethnicized" by its producers. There aren't many references in the film about being Jewish, more of a nod to the Eisenhower era where it was more important to conform and forget the immediate past. Clearly, it wasn't until after the Roots miniseries, which inspired the Holocaust miniseries with Meryl Streep and James Woods, that Hollywood began to make films about the tragedy in earnest, led by Sophie's Choice. It was a very informative documentary, but they left out several important films IMO. But still, very good.

The second film deals with how the US film industry responded to the Holocaust, featuring films like The Mortal Storm, The Great Dictator, The Diary of Anne Frank, The Pawnbroker, Sophie's Choice, Schindler's List...and countless others. The question is can Hollywood ever make a movie that truly can capture the horror that was the Holocaust. They criticize films like the Anne Frank movie for its avoidance of the bad stuff, and how Pollyanna-ish it tended to be; and also how it was "de-ethnicized" by its producers. There aren't many references in the film about being Jewish, more of a nod to the Eisenhower era where it was more important to conform and forget the immediate past. Clearly, it wasn't until after the Roots miniseries, which inspired the Holocaust miniseries with Meryl Streep and James Woods, that Hollywood began to make films about the tragedy in earnest, led by Sophie's Choice. It was a very informative documentary, but they left out several important films IMO. But still, very good.

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Sounds interesting and worth seeing. I wonder if these were mentioned?

Couple of good Holocaust movies:

The Pianist- Some scenes in it were truly horrifying.

Boy in striped pajamas- this one really captured the horror of the Holocaust by telling how some civilians were totally unaware of what was being done to the Jewish people. It's a really tough movie to watch, particularly toward the end.

In reality the Holocaust must have been so unspeakably horrifying (I did not experience it first hand, so I have to say "must have been") that I don't know how any movie could truly capture ALL of it. What the film industry has done is taken pieces of it and shown us how horrible those were, and let us extrapolate from that.

Sounds interesting and worth seeing. I wonder if these were mentioned?

Couple of good Holocaust movies:

The Pianist- Some scenes in it were truly horrifying.

Boy in striped pajamas- this one really captured the horror of the Holocaust by telling how some civilians were totally unaware of what was being done to the Jewish people. It's a really tough movie to watch, particularly toward the end.

In reality the Holocaust must have been so unspeakably horrifying (I did not experience it first hand, so I have to say "must have been") that I don't know how any movie could truly capture ALL of it. What the film industry has done is taken pieces of it and shown us how horrible those were, and let us extrapolate from that.

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The doc did reference the films you mention. I for one loved The Pianist. I couldn't sit through Striped Pajamas....that was uncomfortable.

I'm not quite sure where to put this, but for anyone who is interested in or is familiar with this event, starting at 10:00pm (IOW, right now) the 2009 PBS production of The People Vs. Leo Frank is airing tonight -- at least, it is here in Atlanta; I don't know if it is on tonight's lineup in other cities or areas.

I watched this when it premiered back in '09, and it offers a poignant, brutally honest look at how the Justice System in the Southern US operated and how it was influenced and affected by the racism and bigotry that existed in the Deep South in the early 20th century.

I'm not quite sure where to put this, but for anyone who is interested in or is familiar with this event, starting at 10:00pm (IOW, right now) the 2009 PBS production of The People Vs. Leo Frank is airing tonight -- at least, it is here in Atlanta; I don't know if it is on tonight's lineup in other cities or areas.

I watched this when it premiered back in '09, and it offers a poignant, brutally honest look at how the Justice System in the Southern US operated and how it was influenced and affected by the racism and bigotry that existed in the Deep South in the early 20th century.

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If Jack Lemmon was one of the stars then I did see this and felt so badly for the Franks. And it makes me wonder if there are any brave politicians like the one Lemmon portrayed working today.

On the docu front CNBC is runnning "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room." I always avoided this because I thought it would be boring. Instead it was a fascinating study of power and greed and failure. And how a lot of good people lost their savings and how a certain former Vice President really greased the pole for Ken Lay and his minions. My blood was boiling by the end of this so I guess it wasn't such a boring flick.